


Entwining Threads

by Rosie012



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Entwining Threads, M/M, Stargate SG-1 - Freeform, Stargate the movie - Freeform, response to jackdanielpromptfic at dreamwidth, story and art by Rosie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie012/pseuds/Rosie012
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's POV through movie and post episode The Serpent's Lair in response to a graphic prompt at jackdanielpromptfic at Dreamwidth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entwining Threads

Entwining Threads

By Rosie  
http://rosie012.dreamwidth.org/  
http://rosie012.livejournal.com/

J/D Image Prompt #61: Frayed Rope  
http://jackdanielpromptfic.dreamwidth.org/

 

 

Jack knew his life had been hanging by a thread. Crushing guilt and an aching heart were pushing him closer to the end.

He tried so hard to make his mind bring up pictures of Charlie laughing or playing. Anything to help him remember his boy before the day he died. The memories wouldn't come. Jack always saw only the blood pouring out of the body on the floor looking suddenly so much smaller than he was. Sometimes all Jack saw was his gun lying in the flowing blood next to his son's body.

He heard the shot ring out over and over in his head. The memory of yelling to his wife to call 911 was barely remembered. The desperate moment when yanked off his shirt and pressed it against the oozing wound flashed by. Mostly his memory conjured up the image of the wound that was so devastating he knew his son was already gone.

He had more than one gun. The day after Charlie died Jack retrieved one of them and kept it with him for days.

If he could just pull the trigger he could end his misery, stop hating himself. He wasn't sure what kept stopping him from doing it. Maybe it was the sounds his wife made moving around the house. Perhaps if he went somewhere else it would be easier. He'd save her the anguish of finding another body in her home.

Days went by and then he got lucky. The air force came along and gave him a chance to die elsewhere and for his country. It was something.

Time didn't mean much to him anymore. He had trouble remembering how long it had been since that horrible day. What he did know was that it would be too easy to walk away from his wife than it should be. Even though he loved her. Or thought he did. It was hard to remember what that felt like.

He grabbed the Air Force offer and went off to work and die. Maybe this way he could atone just a little.

Weeks later, when the stuttering long haired archeologist clumsily handed out charts and showed all that brass and the scientific brain trust how simple the explanation to the Stargate was he had an inkling that he was going to regret his death just a little bit.

It didn't help that the man was a looker too.

He admired the kid's balls and was only partly certain that he wasn't full of shit. It didn't matter. They were going to step through something that looked like a standing pool of water and end up on another planet.

Later that night, after staring at the black monstrous looking thing, he lay on his cot back in his quarters thinking about the looker's excitement and wonder. And his goofy giggles. Then he was shocked to find that for a few minutes he had forgotten the deep pain he lived with from losing Charlie.

He'd been here at the mountain couple of weeks and he realized there were moments he hadn't thought of Charlie at all.

It made him angry. He hated himself all the more because of it. He rolled over and hid his head in the pillow.

In the morning he was busy working with General West planning the mission. Hours later he took a coffee break but while he walked around he didn't see the looker. After a few minutes he sat in a hard chair and drank his coffee while his mind drifted. It was several minutes before he realized he'd gone from thinking of the presentation the geek gave to thinking of his body and that ridiculous hair. He suddenly wanted his hands in that hair. Brutally he cut those thoughts at the root. They were a betrayal of Charlie. He stood up and threw his half full cup into a trashcan. Walking back to more meetings he tried again to remember the feel of Charlie's hand in his. It was fleeting, barely there and the pain wrenched in his chest.

Instead he thought about the strange creature that very few on base knew about. The one that had been found with the gate beneath it's cover stone. He'd spent hours studying the flattened creature hoping he was getting reasonable clues to what he had to assume was their enemy. They were planning parts of the mission based on that shiny metallic creature. He didn't plan on coming home but he wanted to give Jackson and his men a chance to survive whatever they found there.

Finally, in the earliest hours of the next morning Jack drifted off to sleep, not registering the ghostly caress that brushed his hand and was gone.

Just before going through the mysterious blue pool of the worm hole the looker sneezed. Jack looked over at him and was surprised to feel amused. He hadn't felt that in what seemed like an endless amount of time.

He took a moment assessing the trouble that having Jackson along was going to make. He was certain that the guy would find his men a way home but not so certain that his men were going to go easy on him. Soldiers and longhaired college types often didn't mix very well. He'd have to keep an eye on things.

He turned and faced the blue that would take him to his death. Somewhere behind him he knew Jackson would follow.

His men came tumbling through one after the other and then there was a long pause. Jack barked orders while he watched the shimmering blue. Just as he was beginning to fear that Jackson wasn't coming through after all there he was, tumbling on the stairs beneath the Stargate, a little green and covered in frost.

Jack was there in a second grabbing Jackson's shoulder and assuring him that he was all right. They had all had a rough ride. He was pleased to see the looker scramble to his feet quickly enough and start inspecting their location. He knew the guy was going to soak in as much information as he could but Jack was also certain that he was looking for the address home. Jackson knew everyone's survival depended on him. Jack hoped that he found what he needed before the bomb needed to be set off.

At least there hadn't been any of those creatures near by when the gate had been activated.

He admired the looker's figure as well as his concentration as he watched him study the area. Then he saw the alarm in Jackson's eyes and knew they were in trouble. The seventh symbol was missing and this mission suddenly became a nightmare.

Jack had several of his men set up a camp near the pyramid. This planet looked like a sandy sweathouse and he was sure everyone was miserable already.

As soon as the inevitable happened Jack was right there and broke it up. The harassment of the looker went on long enough to scatter his books on the ground. He watched him sit down and start eating something while the pages of his books fluttered in the sand. Jackson was looking out at the vista before him and Jack was pretty sure the guy was thinking, trying to work something out from all the information he had so far. The man was brilliant and insanely focused. He'd seen that much, and he hoped Jackson would solve this problem.

He really wanted his men to get safely home. But they were military and knew the risk involved.

They were all standing on another freaking planet, for Gods sake. His son died playing with Jack's own gun and now he was standing on another planet. For a second his life tilted and seemed very surreal but he threw that disorienting moment away. He didn't have time for it.

Had Jackson planned on the possibility of dying? He'd been so certain that he could get them all home. But Jack had known then that there was a chance that the guy was full of shit.

This was Jackson's dream. Maybe he was willing to die for all of this. If that were the case then it would have to be. Jack had a mission to defend earth. Though the thought that his mission could be the death of Jackson made his heart wrench and without him knowing it the thread his life had been hanging by was joined by a few others that twisted and around the first. He purposefully looked away from Jackson.

Charlie was never far from his thoughts but now the looker joined his son in his mind. He knew there and then that this was a guy he was going to do everything he could to save. Jack would make sure he was given every opportunity to find that symbol.

Being the man's savior suddenly started and he ran after the stampeding creature pulling Jackson along behind him across the endless sand. Dammit! Jackson was going to kill himself without any help from a deadly bomb or evil looking creatures.

Somehow Jack wasn't surprised when the man's fateful ride led them to the people who inhabited this planet. Bad moments seem to lead this guy to solutions.

Jack searched the crowd for anything that looked like that flattened creature back at the mountain but didn’t see any sign of one. The next thing he knew he was sitting with Jackson, Kawalsky and Brown at a feast. He really needed a smoke and pulled one out. These people seemed nice enough and the looker was doing his best to communicate with them. Would he find a reason Jack could use to avoid setting off the bomb?

Forget that idea. He had his orders. He looked at the people surrounding them and hoped the destruction of the Stargate - and himself - wouldn't reach all the way to this village. Though there is always the radiation. He decided not to think about that and took another puff on his cigarette while he watched the looker.

The people of the village seemed like good people. It appeared that Jackson's necklace made him some kind of hero to them. Jack couldn't help but smirk at this as he drew more smoke into his lungs.

Suddenly Jackson was being taken off with a group of women. He waved the looker on and took another puff. Probably going to prepare him for some ritual. He'd seen it before in his special ops days.

He smirked again and tried to remember the last time he'd had a moment of humor. The looker had given him a few light moments in the last couple of days.

He turned his attention back to Kasuf and there he sat with his men all of them staring and being stared at. He suddenly realized the only man who could help him communicate was now gone. He needed him. Was surprised to find he missed him being there at his side. The string his life was hanging by became a little thicker, like twine, as more threads twisted joining with the ones already bringing the two ends of rope together.

Eventually Jack found a quiet corner and smoked some more. He pulled his thoughts away and sniffed in the pungent smell of unwashed bodies and clothes made of animal hide. He tried to remember what Charlie smelled like. After playing outside he was dirt and sweat but later he was always fresh and clean after his bath. He looked like an angel after his bath.

Skaara came up and tried to smoke the cigarette that Jack let him take. The kid had the sort of hero worship that he'd seen in Charlie's eyes for years. Jack liked him. The boy wasn't really a kid in this place. The leader of his gang of friends he was on the cusp of adulthood. Didn't take to the cigarette though. Jack smirked again and wondered when Charlie would have smoked his first.

Jack had stopped for a long time for Charlie's sake. But the desire was always there and when his son died he gave in to it. Now he couldn't stop and didn't care. The look Skaara gave him after he choked on the smoke let him know how masochistic it was.

Now what did the kid want? As Skaara reached for the gun Jack screamed at him not to touch the weapon, that it could kill him! The kid ran off in fear and Jack settled back quickly. He realized how ironic it was that he warned the young man away from a dangerous weapon when Jack himself was going to set off a much more powerful one that was likely going to kill the boy anyway.

He really didn't want to do this. Oh how he really didn't want to do this. His only consolation was that he would blast his own body apart in the act and get what he deserved.

When they got the SOS from the base camp Jackson had disappeared. Unbelievable. Jack didn't need this right now. He was going to have to find out how to communicate with these people so that they would help him find the missing team member. He had another surrealistic moment when he found himself pulling at his hair and holding his fingers in circles over his eyes. Jackson was the only one of them that wore glasses. He really hoped this would work and they would figure out that he wanted to find the man. Right now he was staring through his fingers at a group of boys all dressed in flowing robes that, honestly, stank and the frustration was rising.

Frustration and the looker seemed to go hand in hand.

There, the kids got the idea. They were all squawking like chickens and then off with a Mastidge to sniff him out. When they first found Jackson sitting with the beautiful sister of Skaara Jack didn't realize the two were actually talking freely together. He was just angry that he was being delayed getting back to his other men left back near the Stargate.

It was a shock to realize how much Jackson had learned and he had a renewed hope that the man would get them all home. But he hadn't found the answer yet and they had to go. Right now Jack didn't know what condition his men back at the base camp were in.

Jackson followed him quickly enough and this pleased Jack in ways that he didn't want to think about.

Later, when he was thrown into the pit where Kawalsky, Ferretti and the other men had been taken and they asked where Jackson was he couldn't find the words to tell them.

Jackson had saved his life. Jackson was dead.

Jack O'Neill was alive. Why? Why? He didn't deserve to have been saved by the only person that had tugged at his emotions in any way for such a long time.

He stared at the men who were now as doomed as he was but barely saw them.

Jack could barely comprehend the sacrifice Daniel Jackson had made and was shocked by the depth of his pain.

The irony that Daniel's sacrifice kept Jack around to continue to find a way to carry out his mission sickened him despite the fact that he was more certain than ever that he had to do it. He pushed the pain away. Pushed everything away until he was again focused on his goal.

No threads joined the twine as he saw realization dawn on the faces of his captured men.

It felt like hours had passed before they were dragged from their prison to be shoved to their knees at the end of a ramp. Jack did not have a good feeling about this.

When he saw Daniel step out with Ra his heart nearly stopped. Jackson was alive and he felt a sudden flare of relief until he began to assess the man. Was he compromised? How was he standing there with no injury despite the ragged hole in the fatigues he wore?

He watched as Daniel stared down at them and he could tell that the man was trying desperately to understand what was happening and what he could do to stop it. Probably not compromised then.

In seconds he had his eyes locked with Jackson's as the man slowly stepped toward him, the staff weapon held facing the men kneeling in the sand. What Ra wanted was clear. What Jackson was planning to do came to him in a flash. Daniel was terrified. He was preparing to die again. He was also telling Jack just how dangerous this enemy was. Jack realized that Daniel trusted him to use the chance that he was about to get to destroy Ra. Daniel got ready to give Jack and his men shot at destroying an enemy worse than he had ever imagined.

 

Suddenly Daniel's eyes left him and his expression changed to one slightly hopeful. Jack knew then the villagers were prepared to fight but he also knew Daniel would probably die anyway.

Well, he decided, not if he could help it. Jack's focus narrowed down to killing Ra and saving Daniel.

It wasn't long before he wondered when he lost command, but it was the people of Nagada who saved them all. They even had robes to throw over their shoulders to disguise them in the crowd. He and Daniel were shoved and they took off.

After a harrowing flight in the sand, once again saved by Skaara, the relief that Jackson was safe was dulled when he challenged Jack to tell his men about the bomb. Jack was angry. His men were angry. The villagers were in control and he wondered again when he had lost it.

Hiding out in the caves waiting for the sandstorm to end had Jack on edge. He paced and then leaned against the wall to smoke. He paced again. Sometimes he was alone and sometimes he knew people nearby were watching him. Their stares made his skin prickle and he scowled as he realized again that they had become important to him. Damn, he was proud of Skaara. He flicked ashes against the cave wall in frustration and thought about how to wrestle leadership back into his own hands.

His men were his responsibility and he wanted to get them home. He wanted to save Skaara and all the people. And oh how he wanted to save Daniel Jackson.

He was still angry with Daniel for forcing his hand. He watched the man as he walked over to where Skaara was stooped down drawing on the wall. The man looked good, dammit. Goofy but good. This made him angriest of all and he threw his cigarette down and stamped on it.

The twine holding his life together had twisted with more threads and become a cord, but he was barely registering this. He pushed everything away because there was one thought that made him angriest of all. It didn't matter how much he cared for all of these people. Every moment that went by he became more certain he had to destroy Ra. Whatever the cost.

As he was about to light up again he heard Daniel's excitement. Just like that the man had found the seventh symbol. O'Neill shook his head with a surprise he didn't think he really felt. The looker had brains. Now all they had to do was get back to the pyramid and get Daniel to dial the way home. He had to stay behind to set off the bomb to kill that egomaniacal crazy ass alien. Maybe he could get Daniel to take Skaara with him. Looked like he was probably going to take the woman he'd been rewarded with. They did seem to actually like each other. Yeah, that's what he'd do.

Things never work out the way they are planned though. The people were determined to be part of the destruction of their enslaver. They weren't asking him, they were just doing. So they all worked together to come up with a plan. He'd decided he probably needed them anyway.

It wasn't until the moment that he and Daniel were squatting down in front of the bomb saying "I've got an idea" simultaneously that Jack fully realized he had a thing for Dr. Jackson. Not that he could deal with that right now.

Together they saved the girl, the planet and Earth. Jack walked away from Daniel Jackson with tremendous regret and wondered if he would find his wife better off or worse than before he left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two years later Jack lay in bed thinking about the last few days. He had left Daniel behind on a Ha'tak with a wound nearly as bad as the one Charlie had. More of a blasted burn than a gunshot but the end was the same. Except that Daniel would take longer to die. He had left the man behind to go off to another ship to get them both blown up. He, Carter and Teal'c would save Earth again but this time they wouldn't be coming back.

Without Daniel he didn't think he cared anyway.

Once again he learned that things don't always work out the way you expect. He believed that Daniel had died. Yet he wasn't at all surprised when they had been reunited at Stargate Command.

When he'd first brought Daniel back from Abydos a year ago his friend had stayed with Jack for a few weeks until he was ready to find a place of his own.

After this mission Jack had brought his whole team home with him for a relaxing dinner. When Teal'c and Carter had left Jack had persuaded Daniel to take his old room again and sleep there that night.

Daniel was devoted to saving his wife. There was no doubt about that. Looking back though, he wondered if he should have seen this coming.

In the middle of the night Jack had heard a light knock at his bedroom doorway and he invited Daniel in. Daniel had stood awkwardly just inside the room and tried to voice what he wanted. His body was thrumming but it wasn't until Jack realized Daniel's eyes were wet that he understood.

He sat up in bed and invited Daniel to sit with him. He was ashamed of the relief he felt when Daniel had made his confession in the dark. He still wanted to save Sha're but he didn't believe that she would be the same person. He wasn't giving up but he was moving on. Then he sobbed for an endless amount of time. They had wound up lying down with a box of tissues on the bed where Daniel could reach for them. Despite that, Jack's t-shirt was soaked at the shoulder before Daniel had cried himself out.

Daniel had fallen asleep on Jack's shoulder but not for long. When he stirred, only half awake, Daniel had shocked Jack when he kissed him through the wet t-shirt. He had started to pull away then but Jack held him fast and urged him to stay.

Jack leaned into Daniel and kissed the lips he had longed for over the last two years. He almost cried himself when Daniel responded. They woke the next morning curled around each other.

The thread that became a twine that became a cord was now a sturdy rope like the one used to tie his boat to the dock that stretched out over the water by his cabin in Minnesota. He'd take Daniel there in the morning for the few days they had off before they set out to save the world again.

 

 


End file.
